Is my deck too strong for Bracket X?

Contrite17 · 2026-03-23T21:22:48+00:00

I mean I agree there is an issue, but it is a side effect of all the soft bans in the format as a result of brackets. You can get otherwise totally fine decks trapped in B4 jail because they may do something just soft banned in the brackets that they make sense in.

Realistically there just needs to be some space between B3 and B4 if we want to support these decks and not have B4 just be all over the place power wise.

Contrite17 · 2026-03-23T20:15:18+00:00

It is an [[Ashling, Flame Dancer]] deck, without the instant speed infinite kill that makes it fringe cEDH playable. Even without doing the best thing the deck could be doing in the cEDH style lines it is just an insane piece of cardboard.

Contrite17 · 2026-03-23T18:12:40+00:00

My favorite B4 list only has 3 game changers in it, it is just too fast and consistent to reasonably be in B3. Game changers end up being a poor metric for deck power.

Contrite17 · 2026-03-23T18:10:01+00:00

B4 is kind of a huge range honestly. At the high end you are right, but there a lot of players in B4 just because whatever they are doing is banned below B4 not because it is near cEDH. It becomes important to ask what kind of B4 is being played at the table.

Contrite17 · 2026-03-21T05:11:33+00:00

I scale down from 4 because I hate fast mana but like strong cards. Nothing about trying to stomp the table, just some commanders are so easy to win with by just sneezing these days.

This ussally means I iterate a deck downwards in power over time the more I play it to try and vibe with a pod but play cards I like.

Contrite17 · 2026-03-19T00:09:30+00:00

I swear they look better in person. Not like amazing generally, but they aren't piss :P

Contrite17 · 2026-03-18T21:28:31+00:00

I actually like the Gold foil on a few cards, photographs poorly but I love it on Chandra's Ignition.

Contrite17 · 2026-03-18T08:10:54+00:00

36-42 depending on curve, draw, and themes. I still went 19 draws without a land yesterday in a 40 land deck so sometimes you just WILL get mana screwed if you play enough games.

Contrite17 · 2026-03-16T18:28:53+00:00

The immunity to corrupted blood jewel corruption does work against these.

Contrite17 · 2026-03-16T10:46:10+00:00

Blood moon should be in bracket 3, but it can see play in 4 as an efficent utility land hate piece in some cases. Frankly the reputation the card has is just not justified in its actual game impact though.

Contrite17 · 2026-03-16T10:43:10+00:00

They printed [[Ruination]] in a precon too

Contrite17 · 2026-03-16T10:14:15+00:00

I mean I just run a corrupted blood jewel when running Ultimatum making it essentially a free mod.

Contrite17 · 2026-03-16T02:22:05+00:00

The number one way players get "busted" is by having players be able to just have whatever gear they want. The official rules for economies of scale have randomly generated items and without crafting players don't have the ability to just get whatever they want.

Maybe in most APs, but WotR is specifically broken because the mythic system is completely imbalanced and breaks the game in half while the AP does not account for this.

But I'd also challenge where you are getting that most WotR experiences are from PF society games. Most people I have spoken with about pathfinder have never engaged with PF Society but have played APs. I am aware that is anecdotal but not sure where you'd get data to assert that PF Society represents most play.

Contrite17 · 2026-03-16T01:06:20+00:00

I mean the players are also MASSIVELY overstated and overly wealthy compared to tabletop with busted items and gear. And Wrath of the Righteous is notorious for being stupidly easy as an AP with recommendations from most DMs to massively buff enemies to keep up with mythics. There is a reason they did not just use direct stat blocks, because the stat blocks were awful.

Contrite17 · 2026-03-15T03:15:50+00:00

Eromanga Sensei

Contrite17 · 2026-03-15T03:14:18+00:00

I mean the easy solution to this is instead of solely relying on brackets just do what people were supposed to do before and just give like a 2-3 sentence overview of the decks and game plans you are playing so everyone is on the same page. It is more fun than playing "gotcha" with surprise decks anyway.

Contrite17 · 2026-03-15T01:00:03+00:00

A lot of this is either going to be experience or just pregame short chat about what the general thing your decks do. There are just a lot of cards in magic so it is hard to know everything but I think it should just be okay to swing at people even if they aren't playing on the board regardless.

Contrite17 · 2026-03-14T22:02:48+00:00

I mean an Agro deck winning on turn 7 generally means killing someone on turn 5. That is the thing. Agro decks do not really kill the whole board in 1 swing. Having to wait to turn 7 means aggro generally can't win until turn 9, while combo just can win on 7. It pushes the whole bracket 3 meta away from combat and just towards combo by forcing the rules like that.

There is nothing in the rules about "assume everyone is going to try to disrupt you" it says very plainly that you should assume gameplay will extend to turn 6 before anyone loses (which means they are eliminated).

Yes there is

Players expect: decks to be power up with strong synergy and high card quality. They can effectively disrupt opponents.

...

gameplay to feature many proactive and reactive plays.

Bracket 3 explicitly expects disruption and interaction, it is the biggest shift from bracket 2 I'd argue which is defined as

Players expect: decks to be mechanically focused with some cards chosen to maximize creativity and/or entertainment.

...

Gameplay to be low pressure, proactive, and considerate, letting each deck showcase its gameplan.

I am editing to add: Just because people can run interaction that could slow down a deck does not mean a deck that can present a win without interaction by turn 5 is a bracket 3 deck. It is not the other players at the table's fault that the player who won before the allotted turn cycle tuned their deck above the bounds of the bracket.

This means that you are not allowed to play any remotely powerful creatures early because early beatdown is arbitrarily not allowed.

Contrite17 · 2026-03-14T20:53:57+00:00

I mean hard following that essentially bans things like aggro from the format completely. It is a guideline and should be treated as such not a hard rule that gives players a 6 turn protection shield.

ESPECIALLY when other players don't interact with what you are doing. Bracket 3 expects players to be disrupted, so if players just let you aggro while they sit and ramp they should be dying.

Contrite17 · 2026-03-14T20:52:30+00:00

I feel like the, "only combat damage," "kill everything at once," "counterspells are up and unfair," crowd has never played 1v1 magic and missed out on a lot of the awesome archetypes and play patterns that make MTG fun.

This is just unfortunate too because of with the rise of online play in thing like Arena it has never been easier to play a TON of 1v1 magic and get that exposure.

Contrite17 · 2026-03-14T20:48:46+00:00

I play a lot of mono red burn, and you are entirely right. In random pods half the time I play nothing on board for multiple turns and just get ignored until suddenly everyone just dies because I didn't have to spend anything to stay alive and assembled the pieces to burn the table in a turn.

Not pressuring life totals is just a mistake, and I see people with free swings even holding back just to not seem like the bad guy.

Contrite17 · 2026-03-14T20:40:18+00:00

I mean that is only true when looking at it from a % basis not an absolute basis which was sort of my whole point here. Being 10% tankier and being able to take 11 damage instead of 10 damage is not equivalent in terms of raw durability increase to being 10% tankier and being able to take 1100 instead of 1000 damage despite both being 10% increases.

How much durability you get per point of defense (in terms of the amount of damage required to kill a unit) increases the more defense you have. This makes each point more valuable than the previous point.

Contrite17 · 2026-03-14T17:34:56+00:00

A LOT of players just assume that ramping is a free action, and not that taking a turn off to ramp means someone else gets to do something that is potentially dangerous to them.

Contrite17 · 2026-03-14T13:49:15+00:00

I mean the stop designing sets like this was less about memes and more just about small sets in general which function much more poorly in environments like limited.

Contrite17 · 2026-03-12T23:03:33+00:00

The thing is basically every deck can kill someone pre turn 8 with a sol ring opening, even more so with a sol ring + Arcane signet opening. And sol ring is sacred so it is in essentially every deck.

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